


I Lost Everything

by TJNewcastle



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Point Blank: There's just a lot of angst here, i'm sorry in advance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27771724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TJNewcastle/pseuds/TJNewcastle
Summary: Cassian and Jyn's argument on Eadu has a backstory. This is it.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	I Lost Everything

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Posted this awhile ago on Tumblr, but decided to move it here! Sorry, it's a little dark.

We ran down the dark hallway, following Jess to her ship, getting further away from the cell we had spent a week in. Ari's injured leg was slowing her down; she didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up.

“How much further?” Ari calls ahead.

“Not much! We just have to get to the end of this hangar and we are homeward bound!” Jess yells back over her shoulder. The fact that the rebels had decided to focus on this star destroyer at this specific moment was just too good to be true. Ari's breath was getting ragged and she could tell that Cassian was tired too. The lack of food and water for the past couple of days was taking its toll and quickly. The three of them turned another corner and Ari could see the space open up at the end of the last corridor. Almost there. Cassian grabs her hand and pulls her toward the entrance to the hangar. They had to pull off to the side, wasting precious seconds for our escape to let technicians and mechanics fly past them, back into the depths of the ship.

“Lucky us, there will be no one left in the hangar.” Cass says, his voice low. He gives her hand a quick squeeze. Ari squeezes his hand back, giving him a small, excited smile. Even though they were so close to leaving, she begin to feel a sense of uneasiness and dread. After the last of the Imperial workers exits the hangar, they rushed to their escape route: the ship Jess had snuck in under the radar. Each step was quicker than the last, knowing there wasn't much time left before the destroyer blows sky high. They make it halfway across the floor and stop, shielding ourselves behind a support beam in the middle of the space.

“That’s my ship right over there.” After taking off her imperial hat and loosening her jacket, Jess points with her blaster to a small cargo ship maybe 200 feet away. “I am just waiting for these guards to move from the fighters on our left.” Cassian and Ari peer around the lieutenant to see four stormtroopers inspecting other, larger imperial cargo vessels. To the right, the fuel containers used for topping up the ships started to creak, adding to Ari's need to get on Jess’s ship and at least a lightyear away from the star destroyer as quickly as possible.

“Is there any way we can distract them?” Cassian asks. She could see the gears turning in his head, always trying to strategize.

“Guys I really think we need to move soon.” Ari prods, the tanks opposite the trio becoming noisier by the second.

“Ari, we can’t move until we figure out this trooper sitch.” Jess says. Ari started to move out from the support beam into the open floor space to get a better look. All the stormtroopers look very occupied with their inspections, hasty to get things set before they got the order to evacuate, an order that was imminent.

“They aren’t looking we should just make a run for it.”

“Ri, hang on a second.” Cassian sounded as anxious as she felt. The feeling in her chest that something wasn’t right was so tight she almost couldn’t breathe. Ari reached for Cassian’s hand and and tried again.

“Cass, I think we should—” BOOM. Blinding yellow light from her right was the only thing she saw as Ari was slammed backwards into the cement support beam. Something shot into her side, but it was nothing compared to the sickening crack that could only have been her skull hitting the beam before everything went dark.

Ari hazily regained consciousness. She didn’t think much time had passed, because she could still feel the blistering heat from the explosion of the fuel tanks. She couldn’t see. Ari felt the panic rising in her chest and attempted to movie her hand up to her face to wipe away whatever was in her eyes that was blinding her, but no matter how hard she tried, Ari couldn’t get her hand to her face. She couldn’t move anything.

“ARI!!!!” Ari's heart felt like it was caving in on itself. She had never heard this level of fear in Cassian’s voice for as long as she had known him. “Ari, ARI are you okay? Oh my God.” She could feel his hands on her skin ever so lightly, grazing her forehead and cheek. But it was a far away feeling, one that she wasn’t quite sure had actually happened. Ari felt a dull but deep pain in her right abdomen, and her head felt so, so pressured. She tried to speak but the words wouldn’t form. 

“Ari talk to me PLEASE. Say something, move a finger, baby anything.” He was panicked now and so was she. Ari couldn’t do what he asked and she wanted to so badly. She felt as though her whole body was shrunk into her head, like her legs and arms and the rest of her body was sucked back up into her brain. Cassian kept trying to have her do something, anything to show him a sign that she was alive, but Ari couldn’t and it was killing him.

“Baby, I need you to stay with me. I need you to stay alive so that I can propose to you. I have the ring and I have been planning this for months so I need you to pull through for me so I can do that okay? Can you do that for me please?” His voice broke on the last word and she could feel his arms on her shoulders, desperate for a sign. Ari was overwhelmed with emotion. She wanted to give him an answer, even one tear would do it. Nothing.

“She’s still got a pulse, we’ve got to get her on the ship. It’s the only way she has a shot Cass.” Jess’s voice. She survived too. Ari felt herself lifted from the ground and the wound in her stomach started to throb. Her head felt like it was ready to fall off.

Ari was set down on something hard. She had to assume we were in the ship now. Her mind was getting foggy.

“Stay with me. Stay with me.” Cassian’s voice was low as he set down to work next to her. She could faintly feel something soft wrap around her head and a cool substance began to fill in on the back of Ari's skull. The same cool sensation was just barely felt on her wound in her side. Bacta. Ari's heart felt like it could soar. There was a chance she could make it. Jess called from the cockpit.

“How is she?” Jess's voice sounded really far away. “She is still breathing and has a pulse. I’ve got bacta patches on her wounds, but the sooner we get home the better. You better fly as fast as you can.” Cassian gripped her hand but the sensation in all of her limbs was faint. The blurriness in Ari's mind was inching closer and closer together, threatening to take over completely. That bacta better work faster.

“I love you. I love you so much, you’ve got to stay with me. You’re all I have left.”

She wanted to tell him that she loved him too; that he was the only one she would love for the rest of her life. She wanted to tell him that yes, she would marry him when he asked, and that we would see the end of the war together. But her lips wouldn’t cooperate. Ari couldn’t even feel his hand on hers anymore. Breathing was getting so so hard. She was so tired.

Cassian’s POV

“No, no Ari, Ari, stay here, stay with me. Please, stay with me.” I grabbed her hand so tightly I was sure I was breaking bone. I couldn’t feel a pulse. “Ari breathe. Breathe for me.” My voice broke on the last word. She was gone. She was gone and it was my fault. If I had just listened to her in the hangar we would have all been safely heading home. I flinched when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Jess didn’t move her hand, she just slowly kneeled down beside me. “I am so sorry.” And I broke. I fell back onto the ground, face in my hands. This was my fault. I don’t know how long Jess sat there with me, one hand on my shoulder, but when I looked up we were just finishing up landing procedure.

The med team came aboard and gently lifted Ari up and onto a stretcher, covering her body with a sheet. All I could do was watch as they took her away from me. Someone helped me up, I don’t know who, but they guided me down the ship ramp and back onto solid ground.

“Who is that under the sheet. Who is it. WHO IS IT???” I heard a man’s desperate voice yelling and looked up. Two people were holding back a young man, Ari’s brother, who was screaming at the top of his lungs. My fault. He looked up, saw me, threw off the mechanics who were holding him up, and made a straight line over to me. “HOW?? YOU DID THIS. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT HER. TO KEEP HER SAFE. HOW COULD YOU.” He delivered a swift right hook and was restrained before he could do anymore.  
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Soaked, Cassian did a mental tally of those on new ship they had hijacked. It looked like everyone made it back onboard. “Ion thrusters low until we cleared the storm.” He instructed the droid.

“Understood.” K2 immediately jumped into action at Cassian’s instruction. Before Cassian could say anything else, Jyn cornered him.

“You lied to me.”

“You’re in shock.” Cassian stated matter-of-factly. He just wanted to get off of this planet. Off of this cargo ship as soon as possible. Jyn, however, had a mind for a fight.

“You went up there to kill my father.” Shit. He looked away from her.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Deny it.”

“You’re in shock, and looking for someplace to put it.” I know the feeling. Cassian tried not to think about the accident so many years before, but he was failing. Jyn was persistent. “I’ve seen it before.”

“I bet you have.”

“They know. You lied about why we came here and you lied about why you went up alone.” Cassian was so exhausted from the events of the last day and a half that he snapped. “I had every chance to pull the trigger. But did I? Did I?”

Jyn was just as angry. Cassian recognized the fire in her eyes. It was the same fire that Y/N’s brother had in his the day he brought his sister home for the last time.

“You might as well have. My father was living proof and you put him at risk. Those were Alliance bombs that killed him!”

“I had orders! Orders that I disobeyed! But you wouldn’t understand that.”

“Orders? When you know they’re wrong? You might as well be a stormtrooper.” The last comment hit so close to home that he couldn’t fight it anymore. The memories came flooding back. His family. His friends. AndAri, the only person he had left to fight this war with, dying in his arms.

“What do you know? We don’t all have the luxury of deciding when and where we want to care about something. Suddenly the Rebellion is real for you? Some of us live it. I’ve been in this fight since I was 6 years old. You’re not the only one who lost everything. Some of us just decided to do something about it.”


End file.
